Coffee
by Heichou's Pet
Summary: She always ordered hot chocolate. He always ordered whatever would keep him awake long enough to get the most out of his limited time left. Petra x Levi. Rated M for language and later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

' _My name is Petra Marie Ral. I'm 20 years old and one day hope to be on Broadway. Ever since I was little I was always interested in…"_

The young woman growled in annoyance and shredded the piece of paper in front of her, the third piece of paper she'd gone through since taking her seat at the small coffee shop at the edge of her school campus. The old lady sitting in the corner booth gave her an odd look over the white ceramic mug she had tipped toward her mouth, but Petra ignored her. She had to get this ludicrous assignment done by tomorrow morning, and it was only pissing her off the more she thought about it. What was even the point of writing a self-introduction essay? The only one who was going to read it was the teacher, and it's not like they gave a damn anyway. She briefly considered bullshitting the entire thing, but her pride as a good student wouldn't allow it. She'd gotten straight A's all throughout high school, and being that this was her first year of college and classes just started, she wanted to at least _try_ to not let her GPA slip yet.

She sighed and sat back in the booth she'd been occupying for the past half hour. Picking up the Styrofoam cup that was filled with her new obsession, the small café's hot chocolate, she blew at the steam billowing up from the dark liquid. The merry chime of the shop's door opening assaulted her ears as she tipped her head back and let the molten chocolate slide down her throat. She tried to ignore the blast of cold outside wind that the new patron brought with them, and refocused her attention on the task at hand as she set her drink down. This damned essay wasn't going to write itself.

"Let's see…" She mumbled, chewing on the clicky top of her pen, "Should I include a lot of childhood details? My parents divorced when I was five… but they got back together when I was thirteen… I don't have any brothers or sisters… Does the teacher want more details about my academic interests? I would assume so, since… well… she's a teacher…Uughh…" She groaned and dropped her head onto table, wishing she could absorb into the stained wood and not have to deal with this ridiculous assignment.

"Mrs. Howler's still at it, huh?"

Petra started at the sudden intrusion of a smooth, deep voice into her thoughts. She lifted her head, a heated blush spreading to her cheeks when a loose-leaf piece of paper stuck to her forehead as she looked up. She tore it away to leer at who had spoken. "W-what…?"

A young man stood at the end of the table she was seated at, looking down at the rubric for the assignment she was working on and the small mound of crumpled papers on the other end of the table. He was a few years older than her, maybe a senior (She assumed he attended the same school seeing as he was inside the campus coffee shop and knew the name of the teacher that had assigned this hell. Not to mention he was wearing the school's uniform), and had jet-black hair that was shaved short underneath a longer layer. What stood out the most to her, however, where his eyes, the same color as the ice coating the windows.

"..You took Freshman Choreography with Howler?" She scrutinized him, noting the lack of any real 'edgy' features. No piercings or visible tattoos. He wasn't wearing makeup, either. "You don't look like a theater student."

"Culinary arts," He stated simply, casually looking through the various rubrics and sheets of notes on the table, as if they didn't belong to a complete stranger. "I took Choreography as an elective. I hated that shitty introduction assignment. The worst part was having to read it to the rest of the class."

The color drained from Petra's face. "Wait… what? We have to present it to the rest of the class?! The teacher didn't say that!" She ripped the rubric out of his hands, quickly scanning it to see if it said somewhere on there. It didn't. Was this guy just fucking with her?

"Yeah, that's her thing. She doesn't tell you. Just a forewarning, the final for that class is to choreograph a solo dance, and she won't tell you until the day it's due that you have to perform it yourself in front of the rest of the class. Some sort of bullshit about 'You have to be prepared for anything on Broadway'."

Petra sobbed. She was a horrible dancer, and now she had a feeling she would hate this teacher. She was about to ask the stranger something else, when the barista's voice cut through the café.

"Caffe Americano with a mint shot for Levi!"

The young man looked up and nodded to the barista, who put his coffee on the counter before going to prepare the next order. Looking back to Petra, and then around to the rest of the shop, he let out a huff. "Mind if I sit with you…? Every other table is full."

"Umm.. s-sure…" Petra nodded, having no idea why she was stammering. She tidied up the surrounding table while he went to retrieve his drink, fighting back a blush. Why was she blushing? God damn, this was stupid. Is it because a guy was going to sit with her at a coffee shop? Is it because the guy was good looking? Because he was. It's not like this was a date or anything. For one, she didn't even know the guy's name.

Wait, no… that was a lie. The barista had called his name: Levi.

"Levi…?"

She'd heard whispers around the school, in just the few days she's been a student here, about a senior named Levi. Apparently all the girls in all her classes had the hots for him. Oooh boy! She could just see all the jealous looks she'd get if her classmates knew their precious Levi was sitting with her in the coffee shop!

While she was pondering how she'd soon be the most envied girl in the entire Freshman class, Levi returned with his coffee, settling into the booth across from her. He gave her an odd look that she didn't notice until she had snapped out of her thoughts, which she was certain was an uncomfortable amount of time later.

"What's wrong with you? You look constipated."

Petra's elated mood instantly deflated, and she now had a legitimate reason to blush. "I was just thinking about how to start this stupid essay…"

"Just start from the beginning. The goal of the assignment is to tell about yourself and, essentially, why you're taking the class."

"What did you write?" Petra asked, picking up her hot chocolate and draining the cup.

"It was so long ago I don't even remember." Levi took a sip of his own drink, and Petra noted the odd way he help his cup—around the rim instead of by the handle. Didn't the steam burn his palm?

She smirked. "You're a senior, right? So, it was only two or three years ago. That's not that long."

"Yeah, I'm a senior. But it was almost six years ago."

Petra's eyes widened. "Where you held back?" He didn't seem like someone who would flunk multiple times.

He shook his head. "I took a couple years off after my sophomore year…Personal reasons." He said nothing else, but there was a faraway look in his eyes, as if whatever those "personal reasons" were were painful to think about. Petra decided not to ask any more about it, though her curiosity was killing her.

"My name's Petra… by the way." She added, tentatively sticking out her hand. He took it and the shake was firm and short.

"Levi."

There was a period of silence after that where Petra went back to working on her essay and Levi sipped his coffee silently, staring out the window to the street beyond. Couples strode by hand-in-hand and Levi glared at them. Well, that's what it looked like but it might have just been a case of resting bitch face.

"So, you're mastering in Culinary arts, huh?" Petra broke the silence after several minutes, ripping out and crumpling yet another piece of paper. "That means you're a good cook, right? Your girlfriend must be one happy lady."

"I'm single."

Petra blushed. "O-oh… I could have sworn…"

Levi's stare turned from the window back to her. "I oftentimes tell girls that I already have a girlfriend so they'll leave me alone. You wouldn't believe how many desperate hussies there are at this school…"

She couldn't help but laugh, remembering the girls from her class, speaking of him as if he were some sort of god. "I guess I can't really blame you. You're really single though?"

"Mhmm."

"Shame."

Levi knit his eyebrows and looked curiously at her. "Why is that a shame?"

Petra felt her shyness evaporating. For some reason, she actually found Levi really easy to talk to. He was relatable. He hated the type of girls like the ones in her class. And, being the complete opposite of those types of girls, Petra had always avoided them as well. They both hated this damned introduction essay too, and had a thing for coffee shops on brisk autumn days.

"Well," she started, "That means that no one but you gets to taste your cooking. I bet you're really good at it."

"Tch…" He took another sip of his drink, still holding the cup in his odd way. That was another way that Petra could relate to him. They were both just a little bit strange. A little deranged. He held his cup in a funny way and made poop jokes. She, though she'd never tell anyone, was a huge nerd who obsessed over anime and manga.

"So, any idea what you're going to write yet? You could just bullshit the whole thing to make your classmates think you're cool."

Petra huffed, "Are you insinuating I'm _not_ cool?"

"Well, you're sitting all alone in a coffee shop doing homework." Levi left the sentence at that, as if it were explanation enough of how not-cool she was, and she supposed he was right, though she still felt defiant. She glared at him, and he stared back at her with a bemused expression.

"Except I'm not alone. I've got another uncool loser sitting with me and distracting me from doing homework… Not that I mind, though." She added the last part in a rush, hoping not to insinuate that she wanted him to leave.

Levi brought the drink up to his lips again, but not before Petra caught site of a small smile on pale lips.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Petra had ended up staying at the coffee shop until they'd closed still working on her essay, and then had stayed up well into the early morning hours of the next day back in her dorm room continuing to work on it. Oddly enough, Levi had stayed with her up until they left the coffee shop, and even offered to walk her back to her dorm.

" _Campus rape is getting more common, you know. It's not safe for you to walk alone."_

She politely, and hesitantly after his blunt comment, declined the offer, though let him know it was sweet of him. Her dorm was just a block away from the coffee shop, so she'd be safe inside in no time flat. Besides, she didn't want to keep him any longer from the mounds of homework he undoubtedly had himself. She didn't know what kind of homework culinary students got, but seeing as he was a senior, she was sure there was a lot of it. They went their separate ways.

Honestly, she had taken a bit of Levi's advice and bullshitted some of the essay just to get it done. She was horrible at talking about herself, probably due to her general shyness. So she had made some stuff up, though nothing too extreme, to make herself sound a bit more interesting than she really was. It seemed to go over well, and everyone in the class bought it when she told them that her parents owned a summer home in Japan that she spent countless days at during the year (The fact that she'd learned some basic Japanese phrases from watching anime helped solidify this lie).

The next couple of weeks continued on with relative monotony. She attended her classes and when she wasn't sitting behind a desk, she was in her regular booth at the coffee shop, hunched over her stacks of homework. She studied musical pieces and different dances, both famous and amateur, via Youtube on her phone to conduct which style of dance would fit best with which piece. She researched the history of theater in textbooks she swore were older than she was. On Tuesdays and Fridays, she attended her drama group after classes. They were thinking of producing their own musical and Petra, whose mind was always running wild with crazy ideas, suggested they create a story about a brave group of soldiers who fight against vicious giants to reclaim humanity's freedom.

She didn't see Levi again until midterms were almost upon them. The weather was gradually getting colder, and Petra spent more and more of her days after classes huddled up in the warm coffee shop with a cup of her favorite hot chocolate. The homework continued to pile up, literally, and she didn't even notice the man until he plopped down on the bench opposite her in the booth. Petra jumped, putting a hand to her chest as if it would calm her rapidly beating heart. "Sheesh! Don't scare me like that!"

Levi glared at the tall stack of books on the table that had hid her view of him until he'd been close enough to attack her. Not that he wanted to, of course. "I wasn't aware Drama kids had this much homework…"

"Me neither…" Petra groaned, flipping absentmindedly through the pages of the paper she was writing on Shakespeare's _King Lear_. She sighed and sat back in the bench, reaching out for her drink to take a sip. Levi had obviously just come in from outside, as he brought a waft of cold air with him when he sat down, and the hot cocoa warmed her up from the inside out. "I haven't seen you in a while. Have you been super busy, too?"

"Not really. I usually just avoid people."

Petra laughed, not really surprised by his introversion. "Yet you made a beeline straight for my table."

Levi raised a slender eyebrow at her. "You're a person?"

"Oooh, you make jokes now!" Petra laughed, leaning a bit across the table. "Here I thought you were an ice-cold hardass last time we met."

"Who says I'm not?"

"Pfft."

Levi rolled his eyes, getting up from the booth to order his drink at the counter. While he was gone, Petra tidied up her homework mess a a bit and pulled out some homework that would be a bit easier to do while she had a distraction at the table with her, which happened to be a math worksheet. Along with all her drama and theater classes, she was taking one general course each semester, starting with her most dreaded subject of math. She figured maybe Levi could help her with it if he was going to be sitting with her.

He returned a few minutes later, drink in hand, and sat down across from her again. "Calculus?"

"Mhmm… wanna do it for me? I'll buy you another… whatever that is." She said, motioning to his drink. Though she spent as much time inside a coffee shop as she did, she wasn't actually a huge fan of coffee itself and didn't know much about it. She preferred hot chocolate and the occasional tea.

"Caffé Americano with five espresso shots." Levi muttered, taking a sip of said drink with his fingers curled over the top of the cup, just like last time. "And I think if the average human consumed more than one of these a day, they'd have a heart attack."

Petra shivered. "That much caffeine, huh?"

"Want to try it?" He held his cup out to Petra, and she looked at her reflection in the pitch-black liquid. Tentatively, she took it and sipped just the tiniest bit out of the opposite edge of the rim that he had drank from. She immediately wanted to spit it out, clamping a hand over her mouth and squeezing her eyes shut to try and force herself to swallow it. She shook her head in a violent shiver.

"It's so bitter! How can you stand to drink that!?"

"It's an acquired taste, but it'll wake you the fuck up when you need it." And then Petra saw something she was sure was a rare sight. For just a split second, Levi had a genuine smile on his face. His features were softened, a bit more life shown in his icy eyes and he didn't look so tired. But, just as quickly as it had come, it was gone again. Though the image remained imprinted into Petra's mind, causing a smile to rise to her own lips.

"So, you never answered my question. Wanna do my homework for me?" Petra asked, waving the worksheet in his face.

"No," Despite his words, he still snatched it from her and turned it over to look at the front. She watched his eyes as they jotted over the page from left to right, top to bottom. He then handed it back to her. "But I'll help you with it… it's really easy once you know what you're doing."

He spent the next ten minutes explaining to her how the problems were supposed to be done, in much more clarity than her teacher had, and even walked her through a few problems without outright giving her the answers. After that, he sat in silence sipping his drink and starting out the window while she worked on the rest of them herself. He was right, it was really easy once you knew what you were doing. And, since he had helped her, she now knew exactly what she was doing. A half hour later, the worksheet was done.

"Wow, thanks Levi… I hope you're not planning on disappearing for another month because it would be the coolest thing ever to get you to help me with this crap every day."

He was silent, and Petra thought for a moment she had said something wrong.

"Though, I'm sure you have your own homework to do, so if you need to get back to it…"

He shook his head, "Don't worry about my homework. It's not as intense as you may think. Besides, why do you think I drink these?" He lifted his cup slightly towards her before bringing it to his lips again and Petra worked the pieces together.

"So that you can stay up… is that why you look half-dead? Because you never sleep?"

"I don't know whether I should be insulted for being told I look half-dead, or grateful for your feigned concern."

Petra puffed out her cheeks. "It's not feigned! Not getting enough sleep is a huge cause of other illnesses, physical and mental! You could do some serious damage to your health."

He was silent again, choosing to look out the window instead of at her. Petra sighed, getting up from the booth. This got his attention, and he looked up at her curiously.

"I'll be right back." She stated, giving him a small smile. She strode up to the counter and looked at the various baked goods behind the glass display case. She decided on two slices of pecan pie, the shop's specialty since the Holidays were growing closer. She made the payment and headed back to her table with two plates, not surprised to see that Levi hadn't moved a muscle since she left. He was still starting out the window, like an imprisoned man who wished he could fly freely with the birds he saw outside his cell. He looked toward her again when she set one of the plates down in front of him.

"What's this?"

Petra smiled, sitting down with her own plate of pie. "It's a thank you, I guess. For helping me with my homework. Hope you like pecan!"

Levi stared at the piece of pie for a second before helping himself, and Petra did as well. She had to admit, it was some of the best pecan pie she'd ever had. Though, she'd heard that everything was better when you're in good company.

* * *

 **A/N:** Let me know what you think, please!~


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